The Good, the Bad and the Unready (48 page)

Gorm the
Old

Gorm, king of Denmark, d.c.958

One chronicle describes Gorm as
stultissimus
(very stupid), a second describes him as lazy or indolent, while a third, penned by the eleventh-century historian Adam of Bremen, deems someone – most likely Gorm – a ‘savage worm, a heathen persecutor of Christians’ who so angered Henry the
FOWLER
that Henry invaded Denmark and forced the worm to sue for peace.

However, nickname history has been kind to Gorm. He is most commonly known as ‘the Old’, an epithet probably given to him at a later time when people looked back to his reign as the distant past, remembering him because of the inscriptions on two large stones at Jelling which bear his name. Our knowledge of Gorm is virtually limited to what these inscriptions tell us – that he was husband of Thyra, father of Harald
BLUETOOTH
, and that he reigned in the tenth century, with Jelling his seat of power.

The medieval historian Saxo Grammaticus suggests two further things about Gorm: first, that Thyra refused him the pleasures of the nuptial couch in a vain attempt to win her mate over to Christianity, and second, that he was blind for many years, having ‘prolonged his old age to the utmost bounds of the human lot’. Modern science casts doubt on the latter claim. Forensic analyses on his skeletal remains show that Gorm the Old probably died in his forties.

Old Copper Nose
see
BLUFF KING HAL

 
Old Fritz
see
Frederick the
GREAT

Old Ironsides
see
NOSE ALMIGHTY

Old Noll
see
NOSE ALMIGHTY

Old Nosey
see
Arthur the
IRON DUKE

James the
Old Pretender
see
James the
WARMING-PAN BABY

Old Q
see
William the
RAKE OF PICCADILLY

Old Rowley
see
Charles the
MERRY MONARCH

Antigonus the
One-Eyed

Antigonus I, king of Macedonia, 382–301
BC

The works of the Greek painter Apelles, none of which survive, were said to combine Dorian thoroughness with Ionian grace. Of his portraits, about which ancient writers raved, was one of King Antigonus, the former general under Alexander the
GREAT
who forged a friendship between Macedonia and many of the Greek city-states. The depiction was in profile, because of the king’s missing eye. The reason for its absence, like the true beauty of Apelles’ oeuvre, remains a mystery.

John the
One-Eyed

John Zisca, Bohemian reformer, 1360–1424

To lose one eye may be regarded as a misfortune. Some say that John lost one eye in a childhood accident, while others say it was
at the battle of Tannenburg in 1410. To lose both eyes seems like carelessness. John lost the other one while leading an army of peasants in a campaign against papal authority in Bohemia. Despite his blindness, he continued to act as general with the same skill, success and ruthlessness as before. His favourite way of executing monks, we are told, was to smother them with pitch and set them alight.